He preserved in all companies a constant alertness of spirit, an undiminished sense of self-reliant enjoyment, that was surprising to the onlooker. And yet, despite his unfailing courtesy even to those whom in his secret heart he must often have set in the category of bores, he never left the slightest impression of insincerity. By means, hardly definable, he contrived to keep his converse, even with the most commonplace of his acquaintance, on a certain high spiritual level, and when he took his leave of any party it was impossible not to feel that a considerable personage had quitted the room. And yet the personal impression made by Browning was not commanding. Vigorous and strenuous he always seemed, and those characteristics stamped him on the first encounter. But they might have belonged equally to a leader in any other walk of life--to a successful man of affairs, or to a politician in the fulness of his fame. To those who knew him well there were, however, many little sidelights that showed the poet. Something deeper and more passionate, something more chivalrous and more tender, lurked beneath the social armour that he chose to wear; and it was easy to perceive that even in his ripe age there were smouldering fires of a more passionate experience that a word might waken into flame. He came often to our house in the years between 1880 and 1885. In our smaller circle we saw him as an intimate friend, and he was a kind and a true friend. I think he was not indifferent to good living, but he was always content with our simple fare--more than content, certainly, if he was allowed his bottle of port wine, not to be sipped at dessert as others use it, but to be quaffed through dinner as an accompaniment to every course. His appreciation of wine, never immoderately indulged, must, I suppose, have been inherited, for he used to tell me a story of his father’s indignation on the occasion of his once asking for a glass of water. “Water, Robert!” exclaimed the elder Browning in dismay. “For washing purposes it is, I believe, often employed, and for navigable canals I admit it to be indispensable, but for drinking, Robert, God never intended it.”